Stoney Creek captain Chris Stanbury got the comeback started midway through the third period when he fired a quick wrister that found a hole in the short side to make it 5-3, and setting up the late heroics of Arbour and Niederhauser.

“He’s been our emotional leader all year,” Cougars head coach Ian Smith said. “He really had another good game tonight.”

The Cougars then pulled the goaltender late and Nolan Arbour scored with 1:01 to play to make it 5-4. Then Josh Niederhauser got a power play goal with just 26.5 seconds left, cutting across the top of the circles and firing a hard snap shot through a crowd and into the back of the net, putting the cap on a period that saw the Cougars out shoot Clarkston 21-2 as they staged their comeback.

“The boys, I give them credit, whatever happened in here with these guys as a team,” Smith said. “It was a fun game, and that’s why you play 51 minutes.”

“We played well up until the last ten minutes of the third period,” Clarkston head coach Bryan Krygier said. “That just shows even though you play two good periods of hockey, the third period came to bite us. But again, they (Stoney Creek) had a lot of pressure and they played well the third period,” he added.

Clarkston had taken control of the game early in the second period. Trailing 2-1 to start the period, the Wolves scored four straight goals, including three in the span of just 1:50. First, it was jacob LaPorte finding Chase Wiedemann in front of the net, and Wiedemann redirected the puck into the top left corner to tie the score at 2-2 with 15:09 still to play in the second period. Just 14 seconds later, Alex Propson crashed the net and banged one in to give the Wolves the lead. LaPorte and Garrett Polish converted a 2 on 1 breakaway barely 90 seconds later with Polish firing home the rebound and forcing Stoney Creek to call time out.

“We were kind of shell shocked there for about five or six minutes in the second,” Smith said.

“We can move the puck well when we want to, and we can control the play,” Krygier said.

And Clarkston’s puck movement was on full display in the second period with the Wolves firing 17 shots on net and generally controlling play, especially in the first nine minutes. By the time the dust had settled on the second period, LaPorte had added a shorthanded goal to extend Clarkston’s lead to 5-2 as the Wolves seemed to have all the momentum heading into the third period.

“It was a good game throughout,” Smith said, summing things up. “That’s a good team. They (Clarkston) have been playing really well. I don’t think they’ve lost since the New Year, been scoring a lot of goals, and they’re a well coached team.”

Clarkston is now 10-7-2 overall and 3-2-2 in OAA Red, good for third place. Stoney Creek is 5-6-3 overall and 2-2-2 in OAA Red. Next up for both teams is Saturday’s OAA-MAC Showcase at the Onyx Ice Arena where Clarkston will face Romeo and Stoney Creek will battle L’Anse Creuse.